Insomnia 46!

I haven't updated since I posted about Insomnia 45, and already Insomnia 46 has passed us! So, let's Blog about this event.

Let's start basic, firstly I had the chance to bring my PC to Insomnia 46 (Didn't have this privilege at i45) this meant I could play games and generally browse the internet when not running around the exhibition or writing for Infused. As well as this I had friends come down for the event and hang around with me, on Friday I was accompanied by Wheatypete (League Of Legends ID) who I will be duo-queuing ranked games with most likely. Saturday I was accompanied by Wheatypete, Farty Jones (Again, League of Legends ID) and my friend, Michael. Finally on Sunday I was again accompanied by Wheatypete and his love of watching me fail on League Of Legends.

Friday I was forced by Wheatypete to play my 5 provisional games in solo queue to get my ELO rating, I won 3 games and lost 2, gaining around 1.2k ELO. This is where my ELO is currently sitting to this day (Until I either get the courage to solo queue or until Wheaty decides he wants to duo again). Either way, I was rather happy with my initial ELO. Friday was a standard day, we went around the exhibitions and played Borderlands 2 and received a free t-shirt. Apart from the exhibition there wasn't much else to do, so we stayed in the Infused booth and played League Of Legends until we both had to dodge games due to trolls and went around the event again. Later in the evening Wheaty left me to my PC as he went home, then he joined me on Skype later and played some more duo queue, yay.

Saturday morning and the Guild Wars 2 headstart had started! Hoorah! Oh wait - the EU servers had crashed and were only letting a limited amount of players through, guess it was time to solo queue for an hour until Wheaty and the rest of the group had arrived. Saturday was a strange day, we played Borderlands 2 and beat the demo a second time round, also received another free t-shirt. Moving onto the ScanGaming booth we decided to participate in the League Of Legends tournament (5v5) tournament, which we later realised was an ARAM (All Random All Mid) Me, Wheaty and Farty were level 30 and were fairly decent at the game (Wheaty the best/luckiest of us all) and Mike who was a level 11 who hardly played on his own account, most of the wins you see are Wheaty playing against the n00bs. We entered and picked up another random player who was interested and we were set! Our game was the last in the day, when the time of our match rolled around the other team was disqualified due to a no-show. We got a free win into the Round of 8 (16 team tournament) The next matches were to be played the following day when Farty and Mike weren't around so me and Wheaty had to search for extra randoms the following day.

Sunday morning and still no luck on Guild Wars 2, so I gave up. Me and Wheaty checked throughout the day at the ScanGaming stand for any clues of when our games would start, they said 11 or 12. It was 10am and we were allowed to play games on our accounts beforehand, so we warmed up by playing some duo queue and attracting some form of a crowd behind us while we played. After the first game we thought it best to depart and allow the actual tournament matches to be played. When our tournament match was due we discovered we had once again got a free ride and the other team was disqualified for not showing up, into the Round of 4! When our tournament game in the Round of 4 had finally arrived we had to find 2 additional people to play for us. I think we just grabbed two people off the losing team from the game before and used them. Now, if you know anything about League Of Legends you should know that these line-ups are not fair: Nunu, Singed, Xin Zhao, Annie and Janna vs Kassadin, Twisted Fate, Miss Fortune, Diana and Galio. Guess which line-up we got? Yes, the one with two supports, a tank, no attack damage carry and no Diana. Of course we lost the match, we had no poke, very little initiation and no real damage. So, we say we got 3rd, because I don't think the other team on the other half of the bracket shown up. Other than this I played in a 16 player CoD4 Free-For-All with Wheaty, in which I placed 4th and Wheaty got 6th. We watched some of the finals including StarCraft 2 (Congrats JonnyREcco!) as well as some of the CoD4 and Team Fortress 2 finals, all were very enjoyable.

Saturday evening and Wheaty had decided to stay late (Midnight kind of late) so we got to play some League Of Legends and generally talk about LoL and other games. I have to put a side note here and say that the atmosphere in that hall was amazing, hearing people yell "Butt-Scratcher" in reference to a Family Guy episode in one huge 15 minute rally, one after the other is pretty amusing to hear. Also hearing one person yell at the top of there voice "Spartans what is your profession?" and the rest of the hall reply with "Ahoo! Ahoo! Ahoo!" (300 reference) It was a beautiful thing, put simply.

Not much happened on Monday, I packed up my PC, taken one last look around the exhibition, taken a look at the Minecraft finals just to see how you can make this game competitive and got my family to pick me up. The weekend was over with.

*(To answer the question "How is Minecraft competitive?" it was a race between several players around a map and also a creative contest. Some of the maps did look good and the casters were amusing smashing though walls because they were lost)

First and foremost I'd like to give a big thanks to the Team Infused management for letting me bring my computer to the event and set-up in the booth, was much appreciated. I'd like to give a special thank you to the ScanGaming booth and the Dignitas players that allowed me and my friend to Duo queue on League Of Legends throughout the weekend, was also much appreciated. A thank you to the Booths I visited Including Tt eSPORTS and In-Win. As well as others, especially for any free stuff given. (Thank you to In-Win for letting us borrow a marker pen to draw on our Borderlands 2 t-shirts). Big thanks to all the players and people I met for making my second iSeries event awesome, hopefully I will be at the next one!

I put this at the end of every post, but I think I mean it this time!
Will be posting up League Of Legends/Guild Wars 2 game play with possible commentary when I can get a good recording set-up going. Check out my blank YouTube channel for updates and such. Go >> Here!
If you want to look through old videos of my Halo: Combat Evolved game play check out my old YouTube channel here
As always follow me on Twitter if you like the content of the Blog and keep an eye out on the team I write for >> Team Infused

Infused Fighting! :D

An Update On Everything.

A lot has gone on this past two months with college work hand-ins and a lot of progress on the Halo tournament I proposed a few months back. I also attended my first LAN event, more to come on that later. Just going to do an update on everything that needs to be said, should be keeping this Blog alive from now on.

Lets start with the Guild Wars 2 stress test that was online for around 6 hours a while ago, because I did play it. Again, coupled with Pete Birdseye (His character alias, sadly not his real name) we played a very healthy amount of World vs World, something I have come to enjoy thoroughly. Basically 3 servers are pitted against each other to kill one another, simple enough. However, when Red invaders have vastly outnumbered you and pushed you back to your spawn and have taken over your entire home world and taken your Orb of Power then you are left with little chance of a come back. But still, I very much enjoyed the whole concept. I also had a quick stab at the story mode again but my Thief can progress no further due to an annoying Story Instance where I am left without help and several enemies attacking at once. I did also make a new character, a Warrior Charr because I was being bland at the time, but all was good and I found it enjoyable.
I did manage to play a bit of of the Guild Wars 2nd Beta Weekend, all I remember is playing a lot of World vs World with Pete Birdseye who I gave the rank of Captain in our Guild.

On another note Guild Wars 2 finally has a release date that I recommend you all note down and buy it ASAP (28.08.2012 release date)

Secondly, onto the Topic of Halo: Custom Edition and the tournament. I have a team and I'm also a tournament admin, yay. My team isn't the strongest going in I'll admit, but I hope we break Top 3 in the group stages (Otherwise we're eliminated) Group A is going to be the stronger teams and Group B will be the lesser teams, 6 teams will make it to the elimination bracket blah blah blah, I'm not sure, I just check in sometimes with the other admins. But it was my idea to make a tournament, just to clarify. I will be recording the tournament matches, like I did for the previous tournament is March 2011. But I am looking forward to it.
We've now played all of our matches against the other 4 teams and I can safely say we have broken Top 3 and will qualify for playoffs.

Not much to be updated on the topic of my StarCraft 2 progress, needless to say I want to play it more and switch back to Random because of a good game I played as Zerg on 4v4 ladder. Me and Pete haven't played any 2v2 in the new Season but we finished last Season Top 5 and were sitting in 2nd place until we went inactive.

The Main Hall at Insomnia 45 from the balcony

The Main Stage at Insomnia 45

Lastly, I attended Insomnia 45 LAN with Team Infused as a content writer and generally helping out. Since I live about 15 minutes away from the venue travelling wasn't much of a problem, I did however still stay over at a hotel for the weekend because I wanted to experience the whole tournament feel. Firstly, the venue was amazing, this was the first LAN event I have been to and I was blown away with the amount of computers in that room. I also enjoyed the exhibition hall that was there, which I taken advantage of fully over the weekend. I played a small about of the Modern Warfare 3 at the CM Storm stand in hope I could win a mouse which was the prize for the player to get the highest score on the trial run called "Stay Sharp" I held the high score with 5630 (Or something similar) before losing the high score 30 minutes later. I did try and return to the stand throughout the day to try and beat it, but never had the chance.

The stuff I got from the weekend with @team_infused <3

Throughout the whole weekend I got to spectate the Team Infused StarCraft 2, Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike: Source team which was very enjoyable. I met a lot of people who I've talked to online which was one of my favourite aspects of the whole weekend (I know this Blog post is 2 months after the event) Getting to meet players like Lau, Ourk, Fargo and JonnyREcco from the Infused StarCraft 2 line-up was also amazing, generally socializing with all the Team Infused staff and players was much enjoyed. Sadly during the finals of StarCraft 2 I had to depart, I did watch the VODs of Fargo vs Bling which was a disappointing swift 2 - 0 by Bling to finish Fargo off and win the event.

The whole event was amazing and I hope to attend Insomnia 46 (24th-27th August) However, it is doubtful I will be staying over night this time as money is tight, I will properly travel back and forth in my car or via train. 

A big thank you too all of the Infused staff and players for an amazing weekend and all of the other players and bystanders I met and introduced themselves to me. A thank you to all of the exhibitors at the event for offering awesome prizes none of which I received. (I did get a CM Storm frisbee) 


Also in the near future I hope to be uploading game play videos to my YouTube channel with a mixture of games with possible commentary, it is still to be decided. 


Thank you for your kind attention.

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The revival of this Blog, I suppose.

I know I haven't been active with this Blog writing stuff recently and I have no official reason other than I couldn't be bothered. Several things have changed which should be updated.

Firstly, I scrapped playing Random in StarCraft 2, despite the fact I wanted to get the most out of this game as possible I can not for the life of me play Zerg. The only builds I know is 6 pool and 14 pool 14 gas for quick speed lings. However, Zerg requires a level of practise and time I do not have, so for now I will be sticking to playing Protoss and using my standard build of "3 gate robo expand" which seems to be paying off.

In my eyes the Zerg race is too fiddly, with creep spread and larva injects . Something that effects your life-time when on a map if you have not mastered them. No larva on your Hatcheries is equal to no units, no creep spread is equal to no aggression/decent defense when that Terran army is coming towards you. That is something I couldn't deal with.

With League of Legends my line-up has changed significantly, dropping a lot of my characters due to the fact they're boring and I can't be bothered with them anymore. Firstly I stopped playing as the following champions: Kassadin, Blitzcrank, Veigar, Teemo (kind of). I did announce last that I will be purchasing Kennen, a champion in my eyes who I play best as. Although I built him Attack Damage at first I transitioned into building him Ability Power due to the sheer amount of damage his ultimate can do late-game (1000x6 in some cases) Master-Yi seems to be in my line-up still along with additions Ahri and newly bought Udyr (so new in fact I haven't played him yet) I am now level 25 and actually have effective rune pages and masteries, something I'm proud of.

The small community in Halo Combat Evolved seems more dead than usual, a saddening thing. I am however trying to set-up a small tournament of a few teams in a tournament I'm calling "Revival" using BinaryBeast for the tournament set-up and such, if all goes well and if I can spectate the games that are played (through mods) and if my internet is upgraded sufficiently enough that I can stream I will probably try my best to stream and cast the games (Something I really want to get into) A lot of "ifs" in this plan however.

That's about all I have to update you on, to sum-up: I no longer play Zerg in StarCraft 2, I'm level 25 on League of Legends, Tryndamere and Vayne need a nerf, quickly... and Halo: Combat Evolved community if getting revived (I hope)

As far as my Single Player ventures go I still have to complete Dead Rising 2, Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas, RAGE and Batman: Arkham City as well as several others...

Thank you for reading, I shall try my very hardest to continue creating content like I used to.

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League of Legends: A change of line-up

I announced a while ago that my current League of Legends line-up was: Kassadin, Veigar,Teemo and Rammus. Now, I've had a change of heart and decided to change it up a little. 


I decided firstly to drop playing Kassadin altogether as the way I was building him was wrong and I don't think he'd be any good built the recommended way and he'd also be a bit boring after that.


Secondly I don't really play Teemo anymore, since my friends complain he's overpowered (To be honest he is a little bit) and boring to play as since kills are kind of easy to come across when playing as him. Veigar I do still play as, but not as much as I used to. The main reasons behind this are my friend has recently decided to use him and I don't like sharing my characters as well as the fact I've played as him too much and got bored of him.


Rammus still stays in my old line-up as he isn't used that much and is a very good initiator in battle and can tank a lot of damage and still deal some when built correctly. He is also a fun character in my books to play as, mainly because of his Powerball ability and his waddle.


The characters I'm going to be adding to my line-up are as follows: Master-Yi, Blitzcrank and Kennen although I haven't unlocked Blitzcrank and Kennen yet I still want to play as them.


Firstly, Master-Yi is a character I purchased because he is cheap and used by pretty much everyone in the League of Legends community and I wanted to give him a try. He will be my melee damage output character and general OverPowered character in my line-up and I have already bought a skin for him, so he'll stay in my line-up. 


Blitzcrank I've have the pleasure of playing as through the Weekly-Rotation and I always have fun while playing with him. Building him as a tanky damage dealer seems to be effective. Also using his Rocket Grab ability to yank enemy champions into your turrets at early levels for maximum damage is always fun. Also, for the same reason as Rammus - His walk is awesome.


Kennen on the other hand, I have had no play-time with and have re-watched his champion spotlight multiple times and he does look like a good replacement for Teemo. He is a fast ninja character with shurikens and lightening. What more could you want?


I might try and purchase some Riot Points to speed up the process of gathering these players, followed by getting some runes and setting up masteries (Something a level 15 should really be doing) 


I will hopefully be recording some gameplay of mine with some commentary over it, something I want to do with all the games I start playing. I will probably start it off with small Dominion games on League of Legends and then transition into recording Summer's Rift games and speeding them up slightly of something.


Thank you for reading and I'll try and keep you updated throughout the week! 

Please 'Like' Team Infused on Facebook here and follow them on Twitter @team_infused

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Why I enjoy Batman Arkham City

I received a PC upgrade recently so my PC is now capable of running pretty much anything at maximum settings.  I also received a copy of Batman: Arkham City. I enjoyed Batman: Arkham Asylum for all the wrong reasons - The Riddler puzzles.

This trend of mine continues in Arkham City, but I do enjoy much more. Firstly, running around Arkham Asylum you didn't have many places to go. The main objective was the only thing going on at the time as well as the Riddler puzzles scattered around the map and some weren't collectible until the end of the game.

However, Akrham City has a lot of extra side-missions and the ability to Free-Roam around the City. As well as collecting Riddler trophies, of course. The graphics for this game are something that work well for the genre and the play-style. It's dark - Which goes very well with the stealth section in the game. The quality of graphics in the game and astonishing (Only comparable with Skyrim and Rage in my opinion) The controls on PC are much more easier to use than I also first expected, another plus I suppose.

I have been dying to play the Batman game for some time and am thankful that I have received it. The things I enjoy more are the bigger map and the extra side quests. The ability to scan Riddler puzzles is also a treat, although they shown up in Arkham Asylum on your map anyway.

I still need to play through the rest of this game, and I do intent to (As long as I don't get stuck into Skyrim, Rage, Dead Rising 2 or Fallout New Vegas) which will be a little hard to do. In further Blog posts I hope to gather screenshots of the game and explain why it's so awesome, failing that? I'll record some game play and throw some commentary on top of it.

Lastly, before I end this post I am thrilled to see old DC Universe characters come back into the fray, as Arkham Asylum didn't have that many (If memory serves well) and that's only with 8 hours current play time. I can't wait to discover more...

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An Introduction To League Of Legends

I know this Blog post is late, and I mean very late. But I have been busy with other work to do with college.

Lets talk about League of Legends and what I enjoy about it. I don't know what it is that got me hooked on this game. Perhaps it was the new genre of game I was venturing into, I'm not quite sure. All I know is my friend recommended it to me as it recently became Free-To-Play (F2P) Which made it more attractive for me.

The game-play itself was defiantly something new to me, I had played  multiple First Person Shooters, RTS and more than a fair share of hours in Guild Wars (A MMORPG) But this was something completely new to me and I was eager to start playing.

The game is basically a 5v5 game, minions spawn and you have to attack a total of 3 towers in each lane (There are three lanes) And 2 more turrets guarding the main Nexus. Your goal is to destroy the Nexus. It's a mixture of attack/defend which I find quite enjoyable.

I started off as the character "Ryze" a magic character in which I had to focus on ability power to strengthen his spells (Or something along those lines, I just buy recommended items and hope for the best). I have now transitioned away from playing as Ryze and now play as the 4 main Heroes that I have chosen. The Heroes I use are: Kassadin, Veigar,Teemo and Rammus.

There aren't many downsides to this game, apart from the long lasting games (Up to an hour in some cases) Although I haven't played full PvP (I just play vs AI) the games can still be long.

I still need to practise this game a lot. Since you have a lot of different items and characters can be built different ways. (Like I build Kassadin to have a high attack damage and speed) which goes kind of well...

I'll keep reporting on how I'm doing, nothing will be positive though. I do have wins on my account playing PvP, but they were my friend playing...

More in-depth Blogs to come, thank you for reading.

Please 'Like' Team Infused on Facebook here and follow them on Twitter @team_infused

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So, There's This Game Called DotA2 - You May Have Heard Of It

I received a DotA2 Beta Key off the amazing Gaming Organisation - Team Infused. I enjoyed League of Legends a similar action RTS/Fantasy Strategy game and wanted to know what DotA2 was all about, so I downloaded it and installed it when I had a chance to return to my PC.

I was familiar with League of Legends enough to jump into a Private game with a friend, I played as the character "Anti-Mage" A character I have seen played quite a bit by Team Infused's DotA2 player "Wagamama" (Stream here) Whom has great success with the character.

Me on the other hand had very little success, or actually none at all. And me and my friend lost our first Private game vs the AI (They were on easy mode, so it makes the situation much worse) As all I tried to do was raise "Anti-Mage" attack speed to an ungodly amount to try to slay my enemies. I did succeed in that though. Hitting enemies at an accelerated rate can never be bad, of course. 


Although the character "Anti-Mage" is considered to be overpowered in the DotA2 universe and is banned in most of the professional games I still had no success with the character. I transitioned into playing as "Shadow-Shaman" a mage character who I got on quite well with after playing as "Veigar" in League of Legends. Although my better knowledge of mage oriented characters I still ended up losing another game to the Easy AI...


I think this game requires a lot more playtime than League of Legends, without the experience of playing DotA 1 I was clueless to start with and without the help of a tutorial it made it even worse. You also need to know what most items do and find a build that is right for your character. As I was looking at the items for the first few minutes of every game, this left my farm time low and my character sitting at the spawn point as I looked to see what the shops had to offer in terms of weaponry.


I won't stop playing DotA 2, I will continue and possibly start recording the games I play and ask for tips to improve. Until I find some decent builds and some more knowledge of the games I'll stick to the Private games vs AI...

Please 'Like' Team Infused on Facebook here and follow them on Twitter @team_infused

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